ArcelorMittal Tells EU Court That Emissions Rules Aren’t Fair

Lawyers for steel giant ArcelorMittal have told Europe’s highest court that there’s no justification for EU lawmakers to exclude the aluminum and chemical industries from 2003 legislation that capped CO2 emissions and that the exclusion puts the steel sector at a “complete disadvantage,” Bloomberg reports.

The idea behind the exclusion was to start by including those sectors primarily responsible for CO2 emissions. The steel sector had six times more emissions than the chemicals industry, according to an EU lawyer. In addition to steel, industries covered by the existing rules include electricity, paper and cement.

The Advocate General will publish nonbinding legal advice by May 21. The court is expected to rule within the following six months.

The steel industry recently announced that it will collect and report the carbon dioxide emissions data of steel plants in all the major steel producing countries.